return2ozmaWalmart, Costco and other companies rethink self-checkout, some stores removing them
RedditRejectI guess there is good and bad with either style. I generally prefer the self checkout because I can bag my own stuff
None of our stores here bag your stuff anymore so it doesn’t matter what line you pick.
Here in Denmark, it’s becoming more and more common to be able to scan your items with your own phone using the store’s app while you go through the store, and you can bag everything straight from the shelves.
You then pay by credit card, also with your phone, scan a QR at a designated exit, and you’re good to go.
They have random checks, but they’ve only been about 1/20 for me.
Heresy_generatorOh come on; I don't want to go back to having to make small talk with the slow old woman running the register.
knightly the SneptaurIs this a real tweet?
No clue! XD
What’s brilliant about promoting a crime? And what’s next? Call to kill all Jews or something?
Fucking racist.
Is this a real tweet?
Lemmy users really will take the most obvious jokes at face value.
Could’ve been a real tweet, if someone there had the balls to make the joke. Poe’s Law and all
Pandantic [they/them]Sounds like something Collinsville would say for sure.
I like self checkout as an option, almost everywhere.
I DON’T like REQUIRED self checkout.
Same. I’m purchasing 2 small things and there’s a line with the creepy incel cashier? Yep self checkout FTW. I have an entire cart full of stuff and the store doesn’t even have a cashier? FML.
Ya, having a lot of items, or odd items like vegetables or bulk items at a grocery store that need to have a code entered or need to be weighed suck at self checkout.
I would also say large items, but home depot and costco provide wireless scanners which work very well. Can just roll your cart up grab the scanner scan and go without taking stuff off.
That and age-gated items like alcohol and [some] medicines. If the one human managing the self-checkout horde is busy, you’re just left waiting.
Somehow Costco has managed this well (as has Sam’s Club).
Costco always has sufficient ID checkers in the self-checkout, and Sam’s checks your ID as you leave the store if you do the Scan-as-You-Go feature. Q
uick and easy for both.
They really need to just pay for extra cashiers. And* can’t they also have “express lanes?”
- corrected
Exactly. Seems Costco and Sam’s do just that.
This really is it. I managed a grocery store for years, and the problem these companies have is that the self checkout can replace too many cashiers. Note that it can take the place of 1 or 2, but really, the boon of the self checkout is to really function as the best express lane ever. It should take the heat off your normal cashiers and provide an option best suited for quick purchases under 10 items.
But what ends up happening is schedulers drop their usual front end down from 4 cashiers to 1 and a self checkout host and completely nullify any gains their customers would have gotten from the enhanced service options. People really do like self checkouts but resent the hell out of being forced to use them as a blatant cash grab.
deegeeseLast time I was at a Target with only self checkout I went to customer service and had them scan me out.
It’s a baller move. It probably annoys the person at the customer service counter in the moment, but I respect it.
It helped to be polite but firm about it.
“There are no staffed checkout lanes and I hate those robots. Please check me out here.“
I gotta remember that for the future.
I get paid to work with robots. Are you paying me, here?
That’s not being polite, that’s just being an entitled dick head thinking you deserve special treatment.
They schedule what is budgeted by corporate, ime.
I will put one other mistake in there, is self checkouts with too many prompts. I avoid using self checkout at a few stores because the minimum number of prompts is higher than 3.
Good: scanning starts the process, select done AT MOST asks for how many bags, then payment type, swipe and pay (optional email receipt on pin pad).
Bad: Cant’ start till you tap start, asks for member ship card up front, asks if you want to donate, scan, asks if you want to use your rewards, asks for number of bags, also would you like an email receipt?
You missed incessant “place your item in the bagging area” and failing/requiring “assistance” if you scan too fast.
Ya and some of them will let you put your own bags in the bagging area in the start so you can fill your bags as you scan, while others do not.
Do you have the overhead camera that tries to detect theft, and vaults your scanning to have an employee come over and review the footage before you can continue scanning? That’s my favorite.
ares35so glad walmart here turned off the bagging scales. you can just take the wireless 'gun' and shoot everything in your cart and toss 'em into your reusable bags as you go.
One cool thing I’ve found is that you can scan your card on the reader at any time.
I walk up to the machine, scan my first item, tap my card, then do the rest of my scanning. When I hit “done”/“pay” it just processes the card and prints a receipt
That trick likely only works on specific brands of these self checkout terminals.
It isn’t brand, it’s how the company had them configured to work.
My favorite kind is where you just get a scanner when you walk into the store. Scan stuff when you put it in your bag, scan the scanner at the end, pay and leave. No futzing about moving stuff from cart to bags or anything like that, and it’s way more convenient to use my own bags because I’m loading them as I go, instead of being rushed at the very end.
KairuByteWalmart in my area was pretty famous for dropping all cashiers at certain times of the day, and splitting the self checkout “watcher” with customer service. Bit of a clusterfuck but they kept it up for years before 2020 made them shake things up.
This is so key. If don’t have enough regular lanes (which at times is just 1), the old/slow/large/complex orders are much more likely to go through self-checkout. Now they’re annoyed that they “have” to use the machines, and so is everybody behind them that has to wait for them. Congratulations: you’ve managed to piss off literally everyone!
I don’t mind self checkout. It turns out i can be so incompetent that the self checkout watcher has to scan everything for me.
I actually really dislike it. I hate how it takes away lots of jobs from people. For example, there used to be a lot of retarded people who did bagging. That was an awesome way to get them into the workforce.
I understand some people don’t like social interaction and like self check out, but they should suck it up.
Semi-Hemi-DemigodReplace them with “no chit chat” lanes. I’m just buying some pasta, I don’t want to talk to you.
But then how will Margaret, the 80 year old lady who can retire but doesn’t want to because she has no friends or family and therefore nobody to talk to except for her captive customers, get her social interaction?
OrangeCorvusWould it be so bad to be nice to Margaret for a few seconds? It would mean a lot to her, I’m sure it would brighten her day.
Margaret doesn’t need your pity.
Never once in my comment I suggested pity, just being a nice human being.
I typically try to go out of my way to make the worker have the best experience with me as possible whether it’s a Margaret or anyone else.
I try to reserve judgement based on edgy comments like this because I usually tell myself “eh, it’s probably just a dumb teenager, they don’t mean it.” But seriously, if this is the way you think about people, you are not a good person and should rethink your life. Fuck you for posting this.
zeppoIn my experience, self-checkout started with the weight sensors, rather than adding them later. I’ve noticed some stores have a system now without the weight thing, which probably cuts down on confusing and time-consuming error situations, but it makes it seem chaotic. My parents use them in the most fucked up way - leave everything in the cart, scan stuff, bag it, then put it in the cart, and I’m just WHAT? Aren’t they going to accuse you of stealing? Some walmarts aggressively pursue claims of theft from self checkout, like in the case of this lady who was awarded 2.1 million after being accused of stealing, which she said was not true. This article details the story of a lady who said she was arrested after not scanning things by accident, and the article notes “Sixty-two other people were cited and released by police at the same Tucson Walmart between January 2021 and April 2022.”
During the civil trial, which lasted about three weeks, the judge criticized Walmart for the “intentional loss” of the security camera footage, according to court records. The judge, James T. Patterson, said that the court would advise the jury that the videotapes “were destroyed by the defendants with the intent” to deprive the plaintiff of the benefit of seeing them “and that the jury therefore is to presume that the content of the missing videos would be adverse” to the defendants.
Walmart also is starting to use ‘AI’ to detect self checkout theft, which I’m sure will be foolproof and work out great.
And if you’re wondering which item causes the most problems, it’s milk. O’Herlihy explains, “People find it hard to scan milk … Sometimes they get frustrated and they just don’t scan it.”
What?
Anyway, I’m sure they love not paying employees to do this, but it seems like more trouble than it’s worth.
atocciMilk is frustrating to scan? I did it yesterday just fine...
I’m not sure what that’s supposed to mean. People find it difficult to maneuver? Can’t find the bar code? Self checkouts tend to have a hand scanner too, and they could use that.
Self checkouts tend to have a hand scanner too
I'm going to guess that this is regional or vendor specific, because I've literally never seen a self-checkout with a hand scanner. And if I ever did, I would expect it to transform into a broken, dangling cable within a few months.
Perhaps. I’ve seen many, and they’re wireless. I suppose they might end up missing.
I know Walmart has them, it's kinda necessary considering the size of some of the products they sell.
Karlos_CantanaEvery self checkout I've used has a hand scanner. Scanning your own things is so much faster. I fail to understand why people whose job it is to check people out all day are so slow at it.
Then you get the customers that want to have a conversation with the checkout clerk. I'm sure the checkout person doesn't care that your grandfather has the same name and he was name after his great grandfather who rode the rails across the expanding United States in the 1800s.
snooggumsI fail to understand why people whose job it is to check people out all day are so slow at it.
It is tiring as hell and they might just be pacing themselves.
We have hand scanners at the local grocery chains HyVee and Dillon's (owned by Kroger) that are doing just fine. Lowe's and Home Depot have hand scanners too. They have all sorted out all the 'unexpected item in baggage area' and other stuff years ago.
No idea about Walmart, but could see that type of store going cheap on the hardware and having it treated terribly.
Can't wrap my head around this one. I held the gallon up the the scanner, it beeped, and added the price to my total. I can understand if people were intentionally stealing it for any other reason, but to say that the act of scanning it is just too much of a hassle...?
The condensation over the barcode/potentially warped shape of the milk often makes it not scan on the first go. Seen it many times haha.
From Tucson here: Walmart in town is pretty sketchy compared to the other places. We had someone light the chemical isle on fire on Christmas Eve that burnt down half the entire store lmao. Walmart sold itself as a low price retailer for so long that only low income people go there and with that there’s theft and then the classism of hiring armed guards during their high crime periods.
ArugulaZI really hate this crap. Pay people to ring up and bag my groceries. Heaven knows you're charging enough for them that you should be offering me this courtesy.
Different strokes for different folks; I much prefer to quickly check myself out rather than waiting in line for someone to check my stuff out for me while dragging me into small talk and packing my bags in the most illogical way conceivable.